The Qu\u00e9bec Popular Music Collection demonstrates the immense musical, cultural, and linguistic diversity and vast range of talents that characterize the many genres of popular music in Qu\u00e9bec. There were multiple aims in the realization of this project. While the Canadian Traditional Music Collection\u2019s primary purposes are to commemorate the distinction of its musical heritage and highlight its diversity throughout the country, I wanted this collection to focus on the variety of artists based in Qu\u00e9bec to emphasize its rich popular genres that are distinct and insightful in their own right. Via the collection\u2019s web resources and recordings, people will learn about culture, history, and politics in Qu\u00e9bec through its popular music. Most importantly, I hope to properly introduce the impressive range of popular talents \u2013 including but far extending beyond Celine Dion \u2013 that continues to surge from Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s musical capital of Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n
Two exciting features on the collection\u2019s website are the\u00a0Youtube Video Links<\/i>\u00a0page and the\u00a0Artist Website and Myspace Links\u00a0<\/i>page, where you can immediately become acquainted with artists and their music to decide what albums you are interested in checking-out (these will be available in UW collections within the next year). On both pages, I organized the music into six genres classifications: Qu\u00e9bec Chanson\/Francophone Pop-Rock, Neo-Traditional Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, Hip-Hop\/Rhythm and Blues, Indie-Rock\/Alternative\/Other, Latin\/Caribbean, African\/Maghreb. On the\u00a0Youtube Video Links<\/i>\u00a0page, I wrote introductions to each genre to highlight recommended artists, and give some historical and cultural explanations and context for the music.<\/p>\n
I focused primarily on francophone music, partly to emphasize the French linguistic heritage of Qu\u00e9bec, and partly to be used as a resource for UW students learning French. An excellent way to improve French comprehension is to read the lyrics for music that appeals to you. Although the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois accent and language itself is different from standard French, there are many vocalists who do not sing with a strong Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois accent. Moreover, reading along with the lyrics can greatly improve students\u2019 ability to comprehend and pronounce the French language. By accompanying words with melodic and rhythmic phrases, the listener inadvertently learns about Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois language and culture in the process. With the six genres of music listed above, I am certain students will find at least a few artists they like, most importantly sparking an interest to satisfy the curiosity of learning the meanings of songs, and an inspiration to learn the French language in an engaging manner.<\/p>\n
The factors that assisted my selection of artists and recordings revolved around research I conducted on popular music in Qu\u00e9bec. The research involved: surfing Myspace profiles and artist websites; studying in Montr\u00e9al (Summer \u201907), attending concerts, and collecting festival programs; looking up awardees of the F\u00e9lix Music Awards in Qu\u00e9bec; corresponding with musicians and scholars in Montr\u00e9al; and researching academic literature on Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois popular music. My two most significant biases were to acquire recordings that demonstrated Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s eclectic varieties of popular music, and to seek artists that are popular and well known and\/or possess innovative musical and lyrical aesthetics.<\/p>\n
We owe many thanks to the UW Canada Studies Center and particularly Associate Director Nadine Fabbi for her ceaseless support. A gros merci (big thanks) goes to Devon Leger, now with Northwest Folklife and the founder of the Canadian Music Collection; Dr. Thierry Giasson, former Pacific Northwest Visiting Qu\u00e9bec Professor at the Center and currently at Universit\u00e9 Laval; Si\u00f4n Romaine, Canadian Studies Librarian; and Anne Hilton, Canadian Studies Outreach Coordinator and webmaster for all their work and advice that made the realization of this project possible.<\/p>\n
Please check out the site at the new site on the Canadian Studies Center webpage under \u201cCollections and Resources.\u201d<\/p>\n
This project was supported, in part, by funding from the Canadian Studies Center Title VI Grant, International Education Programs Service, US Department of Education.<\/i><\/p>\n
Cody Case has an MA in Ethnomusicology and was gratefully funded by Canadian Studies with FLAS\u00a0fellowships to conduct research on popular music and cultural diversity in Québec for his MA thesis. This article introduces a new Canadian Studies website where readers can learn about popular music culture in Québec and the vast variety of artists through their band websites, Myspace profiles, and Youtube videos.<\/i><\/p>\nAbout This Collection:<\/b><\/h4>\n
The Qu\u00e9bec Popular Music Collection demonstrates the immense musical, cultural, and linguistic diversity that characterizes the vast genre of popular music in Qu\u00e9bec. There were multiple aims in the realization of this project. While the Canadian Traditional Music Collection\u2019s primary purposes are to commemorate the distinction of its musical heritage and highlight its diversity throughout the country, this collection focuses on the variety of artists based in Qu\u00e9bec to emphasize its rich popular genres that are distinct and insightful in their own right. Through the collection\u2019s web resources and recordings, I hope people will learn about culture, history, and politics in Qu\u00e9bec through its popular music. Most importantly, I hope to properly introduce the impressive range of popular talents \u2013 which includes but extends far beyond Celine Dion \u2013 that continues to surge from Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s musical capital of Montr\u00e9al, including such internationally acclaimed artists as Lhasa de Sela, Arcade Fire, The Stills, and Les Cowboys Fringants.<\/p>\n
There are several reasons for Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s thriving popular music diversity. First of all, it has a long history that grew out of Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s rich folk traditions. This collection, however, focuses primarily on recordings from the past 20 years in order to paint a more contemporary picture of what is currently going on in Montr\u00e9al. Qu\u00e9bec has a unique status as the principal francophone territory in North America, and makes a high priority of maintaining its francophone linguistic heritage. For that reason, and due to Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s declining birthrate, the government accepts a large population of immigrants from throughout the francophone world. With nearly ninety percent of all immigrants living and settling in Montreal, they have had a tremendous affect on Montreal\u2019s diverse popular music scenes. The most vivid examples exist in the three major music festivals hosted in Montr\u00e9al during the summer including the Festival du Jazz, the Festival International Nuits d\u2019Afrique, and Les Francopholies, where representing Quebec\u2019s cultural diversity,\u00a0 heritage, and broad range of popular and neo-traditional music are highly valued. The astonishing public, private, and governmental sponsorship for these festivals and for music in general reflects Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s high consideration for music and the arts.<\/p>\n
In addition to capturing this diversity, the collection aims to teach the French language and Qu\u00e9bec culture through popular music. An excellent method to improving French comprehension is to read lyrics of the kind of music you like. In this day and age, with the popularization of Myspace and YouTube, we can learn about artists and genres from around the world. Through the\u00a0Artists Website and Myspace Links<\/b><\/i><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Youtube Video Links<\/b><\/i><\/a>\u00a0pages, you can become acquainted with some of the collection\u2019s featured artists and their music to decide what albums you are interested in checking out. Brief introductions to the genres and highly recommended artists are included on the\u00a0Youtube Video Links<\/a>\u00a0page.<\/p>\n As Devon Leger discusses in the introduction to the Canadian Traditional Music Collection, there are inherent problems with the classification of popular music. Likewise, there are inevitable difficulties when categorizing popular music. Although there are inevitable traditional influences from Qu\u00e9bec folk music and the folk music of the communities that emigrated to Qu\u00e9bec, I employ \u201cpopular music\u201d to avoid the more problematic term of \u201cworld music\u201d, which tends to lump musical genres of all non-western types in the category of the \u201cother\u201d. For the sake of this project, popular music is an umbrella term that oversees the following genres:\u00a0Qu\u00e9bec Chanson, Neo-Traditional Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, Indie-Rock\/Alternative, Hip-Hop\/R&B, Latin\/Caribbean, African\/Maghreb<\/b>.<\/p>\n There will be inevitable shortcomings in any attempt to characterize popular music of a given city or specific area through a finite collection of recordings. The factors that assisted my selection of artists and recordings revolved around research I have conducted on popular music in Qu\u00e9bec. The research involved: surfing Myspace profiles and artist websites; studying in Montr\u00e9al (Summer \u201907), attending concerts, and collecting festival programs; looking up awardees of the F\u00e9lix Music Awards in Qu\u00e9bec; corresponding with musicians and scholars in Montr\u00e9al; and researching academic literature on Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois popular music. My two most significant biases were to acquire recordings that demonstrated Qu\u00e9bec\u2019s eclectic varieties of popular music, and to seek artists that possess innovative musical and lyrical aesthetics, while doing my best to interpret their levels of popularity. There is a larger Indie-Rock\/Alternative section because I think UW students can more easily relate to this genre, and since Seattle is also recognized for its strong Indie-rock scene.<\/p>\n The collection was compiled and created by Cody Case, an MA in Ethnomusicology at the University of Washington who was gratefully funded by the Canada Studies Center to conduct research and write his MA paper on popular music and cultural diversity in Qu\u00e9bec. We owe many thanks to the UW Canada Studies Center and particularly Associate Director Nadine Fabbi for her ceaseless support. A\u00a0gros merci<\/i>\u00a0(big thanks) also goes out to Anne Hilton, Si\u00f4n Romaine, Dr. Thierry Giasson, and Devon Leger for all their work and advice that made the realization of this project possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Qu\u00e9bec Popular Music Collection demonstrates the immense musical, cultural, and linguistic diversity and vast range of talents that characterize the many genres of popular music in Qu\u00e9bec. There were multiple aims in the realization of this project. While the Canadian Traditional Music Collection\u2019s primary purposes are to commemorate the distinction of its musical heritage<\/p>\n